Brisket

Getting a little cocky here. After a great pulled pork attempt, I figured it's time to increase the stakes and go for the toughest of meats, beef brisket. As usual I have no idea where to start so I begin by reading this four or five times. Sees pretty straightforward, general idea is to just put it on the smoker for 10 hours or so until it's tender.

I decide to again try a rub but this time I'm gonna buy one instead of trying to make it. After all, I'm clueless and once you buy all the ingredients in trying to make one yourself, it's probably cheaper just to buy the pre-made.

I go to the store in search of a brisket. What I learn is that:

1) Briskets are huge
2) They're expensive

What I know is:

1) I'm cheap
2) I will probably screw this up

What this bit of information, I decide on is just the flat half of the brisket, it's cheaper and smaller. Hopefully this will also cut down the on the cook time as I don't think I have the skills for 12 hours of smoking yet.

As you can see, I bought some rub called "Stubb's", no idea if it's any good but it has to be better than the crap I made last time.

Timeline:

10:00pm the night before - Unwrapped the brisket and sprinkled it with the rub. Wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.

8:30am the next day - Took the brisket out of the fridge and put it on the counter to come up to room temp. Started a chimney full of coals

9:30am - It's pretty windy today so I relocated the smoker to the back porch. Coals are ready so I put them on top of about the same amount of unlit ones plus 4 chunks of cherry. Add the brisket, sprinkle one last time with rub.

9:40am - Temp is 225, this is the target.

Every hour I spray with apple juice

5:30pm - Internal temp of brisket is around 180 (not really sure as my probe malfunctioned after it got to 175). Fork goes in and out of meat easily and looks tender. Off grill and wrap in foil for 30 minutes.

Final result was amazing. Tender, juicy, delicious. Of all the meat I've done so far this is what I'm the most proud of. I will definitely be doing this again.

Next up, hopefully some ribs, the wife has been asking for these since we bought the smoker.

Pork Shoulder - 2nd attempt

The last disaster taught me an important lesson in bbq. There is no rushing the process. A full day with little planned (labor day) gave me ample time to both prepare and smoke without being rushed. I wanted to try another pork shoulder because the last one was such a memorable failure that I had to prove to myself that I could cook more than chickens. The selection at my local market was limited and I went with another picnic roast. I choose the largest one they had at 4 lbs. There were bigger boston butts with the bone in at around 8 lbs but I wanted to keep it small (and cheap) in case I screwed it up again. Additionally I decided to go without a rub this time. Keep it simple. No reason to complicate things when I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. Order of events:

9:40 Started chimney full of charcoal.

10:20 Coals are ready. Put lit coals on top of approx same amount of unlit ones and 4 chunks of cherry wood in fire pan. Pork shoulder in smoker.

10:30 Temperature at 230 degrees, this is the target throughout the cook.

2:20 Four hours in and the internal temp of pork is at 165 degrees. Double wrapped with foil and back in the smoker. Added a couple hand fulls of brickettes.

4:40 Six hours twenty minutes in and the internal temp of the pork is at 190. Off the smoker still wrapped in foil put on the counter to sit.

5:40 With the pork sitting in foil for an hour on the counter we're ready to tear (pull) it.


Again I used the directions from here. Only for the cooking instructions. No rub. Quote:

Maintain a 200 to 225 degree F cooking temperature inside the grill, adding coals every 2 hours or as necessary. Add wood chips and spray the pork with apple juice every time you add new coals. Try not to lift the lid of the cooker at any other time.

When the pork reaches an internal temperature of 165 to 170 degrees F on an instant read meat thermometer (after about 4 to 5 hours), remove it from the grill and double wrap in aluminum foil to keep the juices from leaking out. Return pork to the grill (or smoker) The pork is finished cooking when it pulls apart easily and reaches an internal temperature of 190 to 195 degrees F, about another 1 to 2 hours. Let rest for 1 hour, then unwrap the pork butt and pull the bone out.

The end result was fantastic. Great smoke penetration and flavor. Only thing I would change is to purchase a bigger cut next time. Not many left overs with only 4 lbs of meat.

This was my 4th smoke and I'm pretty comfortable with the temperature control now. The more I use it the less I mess with it. I know what position the vents have to be now to get a certain temperature so I just set them and that's it. This last one I never touched the bottom vents and only threw on new coals one time. Pretty much all unattended. Contrast that with how my first use went where I was adjusting things every 15 minutes. What a rook...

Second Smoke - Pork

Coming off my successful first bbq (chicken), I figured it was time to test my skills with some pork. My weekend schedules have been pretty crowded and I wanted to get started on this as soon as possible. The Sunday after a family reunion was the chosen day. The plan was to be home by 11:00 so I could get to the store and start smoking by 1:00 and eat around 7:00. That was the plan. Turned out car problems put me home at 5:00. Still extremely giddy to start this I stupidly began. Started the chimney of charcoal and headed for the store to pick up the meat and seasonings.

Now, not knowing a great deal about meats it's little daunting with all the cuts available today. I ended up with a "picnic roast", boneless with the strings on it. Nicely shaped, inexpensive, gand just the right size (5 lbs). From my reading I understand that anything outside of chicken is going to need a rub of some kind. Living outside of KC, I've had some awesome smoked pork and searched for a familiar recipe. Ended up going with this:

Oklahoma Joe's Pulled Pork


Rubbed that all over the pork. Didn't really smell or taste that good but this was my first rub of anykind so what hell did I know. Anyway the schedule of events:

5:00 Chimney full of coals started

6:00 Another chimney on bottom of firebox, white hot coals on top. Pork added.

8:00 Squirted with apple juice

10:00 Squirted with apple juice

12:00 Pork up to 175 and pulled off the grill, put in refrigerator

Now here's where I chronicle what I did wrong. Number one the night before I stayed up til 4AM drinking at aforementioned family reunion. Which makes extremely tired today and thus unable to finish the smoke and ultimately ruining this whole endeaver. The meat was cooked all the way through but not tender at all, certainly no where near be able to "pull". The rub was disgusting and toxic.

All around disaster.

Lessons learned:

1) Don't start an 8 hour smoke at 5PM when you are tired and hungover, regardless of how excited you are.

2) Nothing about this process can be rushed.

Next up, probably another couple chickens as that was a huge hit and I still have a little more to learn on getting temperatures right on the smoker.

Brinkmann Smoker Modifications

Being the cheapskate that I am I was largely disappointed in my searches for a smoker. Decent smokers like the Weber Smokey Mountain run over $200. And a good offset smoker can cost upwards of $1000. Little out of my price range... In talking to folks that smoke quite a bit I learned that Brinkmann makes a very inexpensive entry level smoker, the Smoke & Grill. I found mine at Walmart for $28. Now we're talking. However in reading and talking to others it seems that this model has changed over the years and is not a good as it once was and needed a few modifications to work as well as it's more expensive peers.

What it lacks out of the box:

1) A decent temperature gauge. The one it comes with just has three readings: warm, ideal and hot. Not sure what you're supposed to do with that.

2) An easy way to add fuel. The access door in the side give you a minimal view of the fire pan and you have an almost zero chance of adding charcoal anywhere except right by the door.

3) Vents for the charcoal pan. This is big because you have no way to regulate heat and the lit charcoal is largely starved for oxygen the entire cook and can produce some smoldering and unpleasant smoke. Not good flavor.

Modification to solve the above:

1) Installed a Grill Master temperature gauge with 10 degree increments from 50 - 500. Drilled a 3/4 inch hole on the side just below where the top grate fits to give an accurate reading of my smoke temperature. Works extremely well.



2) Installed the legs on the outside of the grill instead of the inside like it's designed for. This allowed me to put legs on the charcoal pan and makes for easy access as now I can just lift the whole unit off the free standing pan to check on the fire. For the legs of the fire pan I used 1/4 inch threaded rod cut to 9 1/2 inch pieces. It's fashioned on the pan with nuts on top and bottom of the rim. It's a little flimsy but holds nicely.



3) For airflow and control I drilled 1/2 inch holes (6 of them) in the bottom of the fire pan to allow air to get into the fire and ashes to get out. To facilitate this I also bought a 10 1/2 inch grill that fits inside and rests 1 inch from the bottom. To control airflow as well as temperature I cut 2 strips of aluminum approx 1 inch wide and 9 inches in length and then attached them with a single bolt/screw. This allows me to open and close them during the cooking process to bolster or choke the fire as needed.



Lastly, although not a modification to the smoker but an essential tool is a meat thermometer with remote probe. Stick the probe in the meat and you can monitor the process from 3 feet away and know when it's done. As things never cook the same duration every time it's essential to knowing when to take the meat off.

First Smoke

After weeks of reading and finally buying and modifying my new smoker (more on this later), I've finally smoked my first meat! The easy to smoke and not screw up whole chicken. Two actually.

Process:

1) 10pm the night before I brined the chicken in a Coleman cooler. Ingredients:

1 gal water
3/4 cup table salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup soy sauce

Above mostly stolen from here.

Then I added a bag full of ice and just laid the whole bag on top and let it sit overnight (10 hours)

2) 8am, pulled chicken out of cooler and let sit on counter to come up to temperature

3) 830am, started a chimney full of Kingsford charcoal

4) 9am, added a chimney (approx) of unlit charcoal to charcoal pan of smoker as well as a couple chunks of cherry wood (not soaked). Dumped lit charcoal from chimney on top. Foiled the bottom of the water pan and filled with plain water. And finally, put chicken on the top rack of the smoker.

Temperature 250 - 290

5) 10am, brushed Italian dressing on outside of chicken to keep skin moist

6) 1030am added 6-8 new charcoal chunks and a fresh piece of cherry to fire and shook pan to clear ashes

7) 12pm (3 hours in) internal temperature on one bird was 180 and 172 on the other. We're done.



Lessons learned on first cook:

1) Don't try to adjust too many things at once, wild swings in temperature result from too much fiddling. Adjust one thing at a time and wait 15 minutes.

2) Don't throw a new wood chunk directly on the side where the thermometer is. The resulting flame skews the reading and makes for a panicked BBQer when the thermometer reads 400.

3) Brining is key, makes for a great tasting finished product and allows you to screw it up slightly and not notice.